Zoo To Open African Plains Exhibit

MIAMI — With one -- and possibly two -- pregnant rhinoceroses going on view, Miami Metrozoo on Thursday previewed its new African plain exhibit scheduled to open today.

In addition to the lumbering, horned black rhinoceroses, the three new enclosures in the cageless zoo include African elephants, east African crowned cranes and groups of antelope-like animals called elands and springboks. Eventually, white-tailed gnus and leopard tortoises will be added to the enclosure. The zoo wants to mix animals that naturally co-exist on African plains.

Future residents of the African exhibits will include cheetahs, buffalo and mandrills.

The new enclosures bring the total exhibition space at Metrozoo to 280 acres, almost three times as large as the exhibition area at the San Diego Zoo.

Zoo director Bob Yokel said a rhinoceros named Cora is pregnant and is expected to deliver in February, and another female, named Lulu, also may be pregnant. The lone male rhinoceros, Toshi, who is on loan from the zoo in Hiroshima, Japan, is living with Lulu while Cora looks on mournfully from across a 10-foot-wide moat.

``We`ll have to wait another month and do a urine test on Lulu before we can be sure,`` said Yokel.

Yokel said the 4-year-old zoo, which has one of the most natural settings in the nation for displaying animals, has $30 million in exhibitions completed. Funding has come from a variety of sources and has included $8 million from a 1972 bond issue and $10 million in tax revenue.